


Children

by orphan_account



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, am i actually giving myself nurse feelings, poor nurse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 21:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4452476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Nurse has seen her children come, and watched them fade away with the sands of time. She thought she would have her Juliet forever; she was wrong. Maybe some people simply aren't meant to see their children grow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children

All her life, she could remember that her greatest desire in life had been to have a daughter. Even as a girl, she would be constantly seen with her little baby doll in tow, carting it around in small carriages and braiding it's hair. _A natural born mother,_ her family called her, and she felt a stroke of pride each time she heard those words. When she married, to the love of her life, a tall man with laughing green eyes and bronze colored curls, she made one thing very clear- she wanted a child.

Her first little girl had fine golden hair and eyes that shone like the emerald grass in the spring fields. She was the long awaited gift her mother had been anticipating all her life; they called her Isabel.

Isabel was a happy child, though frail; she was never neglected upon any need or want. Whenever she would reach her little arms up in the air and let out a shout, without fail she would briskly be scooped from the ground to be cradled in a loving person's arms. She was her mother's pride and joy.

Isabel lived to be a year old. She developed a cough the doctors couldn't understand and couldn't cure.

She didn't sleep for two days, sitting up with her baby daughter as she hacked and gasped for air, clinging to her mother desperately. There was nothing that she could do for her own child; such helplessness on a mother's part, she decided, had to be the worst feeling in the world. She could only do what she was able; and so she stayed up with her precious girl, wiping away the blood that trickled from the corners of her mouth and singing gently through her hacking coughs.

Isabel died within two days, leaving behind a baffled father and devastated mother.

The night after losing her baby, she lay in bed and sobbed; such a pain was entirely foreign to her, the pain of losing one held so dear. She couldn't understand it; she despised it, rebelled against it, but moreover she allowed it to crack her. After the loss of her child, she felt sure she would never be whole again.

Even in despair, her grief was mixed with joy; three months later she held another fine babe in her arms, this one healthy and golden as summer, with a pale birthmark in the shape of a heart just under her chin. The name given to her was Maria, and in her new baby her mother saw the echoes of the child she had lost.

Maria lasted two years longer than her sister; she died not of cough but of fever the year the plague swept through the little Italian valley city. She was not the only one to lose a child that year- indeed, even their own Prince Escalus saw the death of his baby son and young wife- but her heart felt shattered. 

She wept after the loss of Maria, just as bitterly as after the death of Isabel; she wondered for the first time if she was cursed. She could feel her heart shattering into thousands of tiny shards in her chest, her body slowly breaking down just as her daughters did in their graves. She doubted that she could ever be mended after this second tragedy; the loss of her sweet summer child.

But eventually she seemed to stitch herself back together- laboriously, painstakingly, drawing herself back up like broken shards of pottery and regaining her footing once more. She and her husband did not dare try for another child, but children came to her anyway- in the same year that she found employment as a nursemaid of the esteemed Capulet family, she found herself pregnant once more. This came as a surprise to everyone- she was old by now, her husband older. Yet still, on the very day the Capulet baby was born she too was blessed with a gift; a child, brittle and fragile as the dying leaves of autumn, with deep brown eyes and a rust-coated head of hair. This daughter, this third precious infant, she named Susan; and the Capulet's daughter, with eyes like coals and skin as white as fallen winter snow, whose raising too now fell upon her, was named Juliet.

The two children grew together, a fanciful sight- common girl and wealthy child, bosom companions from the day they were born. Juliet seemed to grow on every level faster that Susan- she took her first steps, first words, and first teeth far before Susan was even considering it.

They were both preciously gentle children; Juliet took upon the role of protector to her best friend, nurturing and encouraging the more easily led Susan, guiding her (as well as their older cousin, Tybalt, who seemed to delight in chasing after and protecting the two girls) in mischief as well as play. The two little girls were the apples of the Nurse's eyes; after the loss of her own two babies beforehand, she saw in the children she had now remnants of them. Susan and Juliet grew and they learned; she had at last found, she dared to think, her longed for happy ending with her girls.

And then came the day of disaster.

Verona was a valley city; a prime target for earthquakes such as the one that struck that day. They had been given no warning, no chance to take shelter; in an instant, it seemed, the entire world was shaking.

Juliet had hit her head the day previous, and in the backyard that day a close eye was being kept on her; she and Tybalt were engaged in a thrilling faux sword battle, Juliet with her clumsy toddler motions whacking at her cousin with a stick and the dark haired boy valiantly taking the hits. On the other side of the yard, Susan played contentedly near the flower bushes; she had always loved flowers.

Then the world began to tremble, and the Nurse barely had time to register the word _"earthquake"_ before all around the city people could be heard screaming.

It was six year old Tybalt who had the quickest reaction; promptly scooping up Juliet by the back of her dress, he flung the child into her Nurse's arms. Suddenly quite occupied with Juliet, whose frightened wails rang out across the courtyard, the Nurse automatically hastened inside the Capulet mansion to find shelter.

Only when they had taken refuge under the kitchen table and Tybalt ran in empty handed and himself trembling did the shock of cold reality hit her- she hadn't taken enough care. She had lost another daughter.

She didn't just lose her daughter in the quake, but her husband as well; Lord Capulet lost several cousins, and little Tybalt's mother was killed in a subsequent aftershock. The earthquake had devastated all of Verona equally; as, little Juliet cradled tightly in her arms, the Nurse surveyed the wreckage that was her city, she found that inside she felt nothing but numbness. Perhaps, deep down, she had known Susan was too good for her.

She cried later- for her husband, for her daughter, for her failure. But in that second, she had Juliet; and that was how the years passed.

She raised Juliet up from a chubby tot to a lovely young girl, as dark of hair as ever, with clear, creamy skin and fine features. She was a beauty like her mother, unlike her old Nurse (any fairness of face _she_ had once possessed had been faded with the sands of time). And, most importantly, she was hers.

Even Lady Capulet herself would admit that the Nurse had raised Juliet like a mother; where every one of her own daughters had slipped from her grasp, Juliet was eternally there. She shone like the stars in her eyes, and with every word she spoke, every step she took, every note she sang, Juliet was alive. And as long as she had that, the Nurse couldn't be happier.

Juliet was beautiful and alive, but she was a lonely child growing quickly into a lonely adult; her mother was no confidant, and at times her father hardly remembered that he had a daughter. The Nurse was Juliet's closest friend, alongside her cousin Tybalt; but aside from the rare contact with a few other cousins, Juliet was frequently alone. She leaned to keep her thoughts to herself; she became pensive, clever and quiet. She was growing, but the Nurse was worried for her. She was not ready to leave home yet; especially not ready to be married to a stranger for the convenience of her family.

And then came the night of the ball, and Romeo- the gentle boy with the shining blue eyes, the Montague who swept Juliet off of her feet. At first, the Nurse was distrustful; but the boy's earnestly was just so genuine, as was his intensely true love for the girl she almost could call her daughter; it was impossible not to give him her seal of approval. Besides, when Juliet was happy she shone like the sun; it was a magnificent sight, and the Nurse loved seeing Juliet glad.

And so, Juliet was married after all. She had lived to see one of her girls be wed, and for love as well.

And the very next day, it all fell apart.

As affected as Juliet was by the death of her cousin, she could not forsake her love; the Nurse didn't know what to say to her, but as Juliet's own intense loyalty shone through she couldn't help but see something desperate in the tragedy of lovers parted. Romeo and Juliet could never be, now; Paris was the best choice, the safest choice. She didn't like the idea either; but if only Juliet would _listen..._

Juliet flung her away when she tried to beseech her, fists and tears and untempered desperation; and the next morning, the day of the wedding, she found Juliet dead.

The moment she felt Juliet's pulse no longer beating beneath her touch, her heart still in her chest, the Nurse felt her world cave in. She hadn't been careful enough; she hadn't learned, she hadn't been strong, she hadn't been there. And she had lost another daughter.

She was through being strong. She wept, and did not stop. She had lost all of her girls.

The tragedy of the two young lovers she would not learn until later; Juliet, her Juliet, driving a dagger through her own chest in the middle of a tomb, the body of her love lying next to her. It was too much to bear; the little girl she had loved was gone for good, lost to love and hatred and passion unchecked. The things she could have done, should have done, wished she had done... none of that mattered now, not to Juliet and not to her Nurse. Juliet was dead.

Perhaps, the Nurse mused as she laid a single white rose at the statue of Romeo and Juliet, some people were meant to have children; but they were not meant to see their children grow.


End file.
